Author: Alfonso Sastre (Spain 1926)
Genre: Radio play
Production: RIAS 1982
Director: Götz Naleppa
Editing: Götz Naleppa
Music: Gerhard Müller-Giesensdorf
Length: 97 min.
Translation: Fries, Fritz Rudolf (from Spanish)
Sound and technology: Hans Martin, Manfred Pickert

Contributors:
Celestina: Romy Haag
Melibea: Jutta Lampe
Sor Elicia: Barbara vom Baur
Sor Lucrecia: Christine Oesterlein
Calisto: Peter Fitz
Sempronio: Günter Lampe
Parmeno: Otto Sander
Centurion: Paul Paulschmidt
Inspector of the Holy Office: Georg Corten
Travel guide: Götz Naleppa
1: Policeman: Reinhard Kolldehoff
2: Policeman: Erwin Schastok
Areusa: Sabine Strobel

Content:
'Fantastic Tragedy of the Gypsy Celestina or Story of Liiiebe and Zauber samt einige Zitate aus der berühmten Geschichte von Calisto und Melibea' was first performed as a play in Madrid in 1987. "Celestina", the first significant drama in Spanish literature, was published in 1499 by Fernando de Rojas under the title "Comedia de Calisto y Melibea" and banned by the Church for obscenity.
Sastre wrote his own version based on this classic material. The crucial difference lies in the treatment of the lovers C & M. The play is set in Sastre's work a few decades later, the lovers are older. Calisto is persecuted as a heretic, and the former prostitute Melibea is abbess in a 'convent of repentant sinners'. They meet as 'caricatures of beautiful heroes', brought together by Celestina, sorceress of love, matchmaker and witch: 'This is Celestina: this diabolical bridge between the two beings who do not know how to find each other, this impossible link between the sexes, this victory against loneliness...'.

Remarks: Radio play of the month